As we wrap up our final Narnia episode we're asking the big questions: Was C. S. Lewis sexist? Or can we draw any feminist or female-empowerment messages from his work? What does feminism even look like in the context of a fantasy world where children go into battle with talking animals?

We also look specifically at The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe as a World War 2 story, exploring the story an as allegory for what was happening in the "real" world at the time it takes place.

And of course we took a quiz to find out which Pevensie kids we are, and you can take it here.

Check out The Feminine Ethos in C.S. Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia by Monika Hilder.

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This week on our Narnia journey we are diving in to all things magic. We discuss the differences between hard and soft magic systems, how magic is expressed in the world of Narnia, and how it compares to the magic in other fictional worlds. We also look at Narnia as a touchstone of fantasy fiction, its relationship with Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, and its influence on modern fantasy works like Star Wars and Lev Grossman's book series The Magicians.

This month we are talking about the best children's fantasy book series, The Chronicles of Narnia (and you can fight us on that). For our first glimpse into the wardrobe we share our first experiences with the series, favorite fan theories, and thoughts on various adaptations. We also definitively decide which order the books should be read, and preview the topics we plan to explore in the next two weeks of the series. Get your hot cocoa and your Turkish Delight, kick back, and get ready to go to Narnia with us!

Recommended Reading:

Clarification on Lewis' "official" reading order

Everything we know about the upcoming Netflix adaptations

Captain Hook fan theory

One of our favorite things about The Woman in the House Across the Street From the Girl in the Window is that its long, ridiculous title is a perfect encapsulation of the genre it parodies, right down to the use of the words "girl" and "woman." The genre of course is the domestic noir thriller made popular in the past decade which we discussed last episode. 

But why is this genre so gender-coded? Why all the girls? What relationship does the genre have with other female-dominated literary movements, such as the mid-century gothic romance? And how do male-authored entries in the thriller genre, such as the works of Alfred Hitchcock and Stephen King, differ from this newest iteration?

Recommended reading:

Works Parodied by The Woman in the House...

Why do so many bestsellers have "girl" in the title?

The Domestic Noir and the Gothic Romance

Take the (non-BuzzFeed) quiz

This week we get into the history of parody, satire, and pastiche and how The Woman in the House... uses all three to comedic effect. We also look at the early thriller films that may share some DNA with the works The Woman in the House... parodies, and that have perhaps become parodies themselves.

We found the Netflix limited series The Woman in the House Across the Street From the Girl in the Window (which we will hereafter abbreviate as The Woman in the House...) to be utterly delightful. So we are diving in to this series with an overview of some fun topics we plan to discuss, like the nature of parody as commentary, the evolution of the thriller and suspense genres, and of course Rhonda is going to bring in Jane Austen somehow...

It's going to be a fun time!

For our Podiversary/Spooky Season bonus episode, and as a coda on our discussion of Lovecraft Country as a work of Black horror, we decided to watch Jordan Peele's 2017 masterpiece Get Out and talk through it! Please enjoy this brilliant film with our (less) brilliant commentary. And Happy Halloween!

We wrap up our discussion of Lovecraft Country with a deep dive into the Lovecraftian monsters portrayed in the series and the journey the show creators took in portraying them. We also discuss the literary criticism theory of "death of the author," and how it applies--and doesn't--to readers' enjoyment and transformation of the works of Lovecraft and other problematic artists.

We also take a quiz to find out which Cthulhu Mythos deities we are.

I suppose if one wanted one could follow us on Instagram?

In part 3 of our Lovecraft Country series we look at the real-world realities at play within this narrative, from the historical setting of the 1950s to very recent discoveries in the psychology of fear and terror. 

Read this interview with Atticus actor Jonathan Majors about his thoughts on the series premiering in the midst of the 2020 Black Lives Matter Protests. 

Read this article on very new developments in how we understand how our brains process fear and memory.

TW this week for discussions of racism and racialized trauma

Lovecraft Country sets out to give us a transformed or reclaimed vision of the horrors invented by the racist author H. P. Lovecraft, centering the very people that Lovecraft himself would have marginalized. How successful is the series at achieving this goal? 

We explore different perspectives on how horror as a genre has been used to comment on societal issues like class, economics, and especially race, and how Lovecraft Country and other works of Black horror fit into this discussion.

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